Volga Bulgarians used the Arabic alphabet. But
there are hardly any materials that survived so far from those periods. There are only few
tombstone inscriptions and epitaphs that survived until nowadays.Beside the songs and folk
songs, Chuvash people have a very rich folk literature in the genres of short history,
folk tale, epic, proverbs, and verse. The first written texts that survived until today
are the Bible translations, prayer books and the books that mention about the lives of the
Christian saints.
Beginning from the first half of the 19th century,
the researchers such as A. A. Fuchs, V. Sboyev, and N. İ. Zolotnitskiy determined that
the verbal literary works among Chuvash people appeared in the period of Tsardom and they
developed in parallel to the political events. The research of Fuchs titled as
"Materials from Chuvash Folk Literature" written in 1840 was followed by the
epic of N.İ. Polorusov titled as "Pülere Iln" (Decline of Böler City)
published in the following years. Meszaros, one of the Hungarian researchers compiled the
interesting models of this literature in his work titles as "Caulas Nepköltesi
Gyujtemeni" (Chuvash Folk Literature) that was published by the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences.
In the second half of
the 19th century, we observe the work of V.I. Levedev titled as "Young Chuvash
Poems" that describes the poems and lives of Chuvash people and another study by İ.
İvanov that deal with the Chuvash traditions and customs, and the short stories written
by İ.N. Jurkin that were inspired by the lifestyle in rural areas. "Arşurri"
(Forest of Wisdom) written by M. F. Fedorov is considered as the starting point of the
contemporary Chuvash literature. The first newspaper in Chuvash language titles as "Hıbar"
(News) that was firstly published as a weekly publication in 1905 provided great aid for
the development and establishment of Chuvash literature for a period of two years thanks
to the young authors that gathered around it. The Tsardom government abrogated this
newspaper in 1907 and prohibited the publications in Chuvash language. Nevertheless, N.V.
Vasiliyev published an anthology composed of his seven poems and several short stories in
Chuvash language in 1911 and some authors such as T. Krilov, Yefrimov, Korenkov, etc.
published their books in Chuvash language.
Kerensiy who gained
the power pursuant to the Revolution in October 1917 incinerated nearly five thousands of
books in Chuvash language. But before long, the Hıbar newspaper restarted its
publication. The newspapers that were also published are the newspapers titled as Kanaş
(Consultation) published in Kazan in 1918, "Şuranpuş" (Dawn) published in 1919
and some other newspapers. The Chuvash literature was reinvigorated pursuant to the
Revolution and the authors and poets such as Semen Vasiliyeviç Elker, V. Rzaj, P.
Morozov, M. Sumilov-Uyar, etc. created long-lasting works of art. Some of these works were
translated into foreign languages.
Similarly, the first
Chuvash theatre was built in Kazan in the first years of the Revolution. Besides the
Russian and foreign works, the works of Chuvash playwrights were also put on stage
here.The most important Chuvash poet in the 20th century was Kostantin İvanov. His epic
titled as "Narspi" (Lady Nevruz) that he wrote in his youth is widespread among
the Chuvash people and it has been translated into several languages.
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